In reviewing the link "Seguin Statue to Be Erected", I am triggered to comment on the last two statements in the brochure section "The Need to Honor Juan N. Seguin":

The History of Texas has often been told without
a full representation of the contributions of Tejanos and the risks they
faced. During the fight for independence, both Anglos and Tejanos fought
equally hard against the tyranny of Santa Anna, who was openly violating
the Mexican Constitution of 1824. However, if the fight for independence
had been unsuccessful, most of the Anglos could have returned to the United
States without further risk. The Tejanos, on the other hand, would have
been subjected to loss of property at best or, most likely, loss of life.

The statement of course is true for those fresh from the US after the war for independence broke who had come temporarily for one reason or another to participate in the resistance militarily. However, it is an erroneous statement when applied to the great majority of Anglo-Mexican immigrants who gave up all for a new life, the hope of economic, political and personal freedom, and to contribute to development of a free society at the invitation of the Mexican government and protection by the Constitution of 1824. Anglo and Hispanic resident Tejanos, who resisted tyranny and Centralism, faced equal dangers and equal losses of life and property, both groups were forced to abandoned homes and property (of which most were destroyed) and both fled east to the Sabine River for sanctuary on the Runaway Scrape. From another point of view, one might argue that if the fight for independence had been unsuccessful, Anglo Tejano colonists would have been the greatest losers while those Hispanic Tejanos who were willing would most likely have been offered amnesty and return of their property.

A Texas Historical Marker on East Commerce at Olive [in San Antonio,
Texas] notes the location of the Powder Mill. Somewhere north of that was
the Watch Tower. Is that site marked and has any archaeological work been
done in that area?

Steve Rode
San Antonio

The sites are one and the same. The site is presently adjacent to
the east side city cemeteries, almost directly across Commerce Street from
Clara Driscoll's grave site, and occupied by a vacant business building
and a turn of the century frame house. There has been no archaeology to
date, but the city historical and parks departments are aware of it's existence.
If any development of the cemeteries is undertaken the were be some action
taken to investigate and/or preserve it.

What happened to Col. John Moore after the "Come and Take It" skirmish
at Gonzales?

What's the best resource book about the events surrounding that incident.

Richard Pearsey
Sugar Land, Texas

To my knowledge, there is no single comprehensive biography of Col.
John Henry Moore from Austin's Colony, prominent minuteman Captain from
Fayette County and who some consider the founder of La Grange, Texas. There
should be, but fortunately, his heroic contributions, which are many, are
scattered about in various histories and archives. L.R. Weyand and H. Wade
in Early History of Fayette County give one of the most concise I have
found with some insight into his person:

"In a list of services that Moore rendered his county, the founding
of LaGrange is of first importance. In 1831 Moore was granted the half-league
on which LaGrange now stands. On this land he built a block house on a
street designated as Main. Main Street which served as a nucleus of the
later LaGrange, was not far from the spot where the old La Bahía trail
crossed the Colorado.

Later Moore moved to his plantation six miles from LaGrange and
there built a typical southern home. Here he became a successful cattle
raiser, farmer, and, in time, a wealthy man. Negro slaves drove vast herds
of his cattle to market in Kansas City. Moore's personal characteristics
were as varied as his talents. It was his dislike for the study of Latin,
for instance, that prompted him to run away from a Tennessee college and
come to Texas. Moore's father, however, followed and took the boy back
home. Later Moore came back to Texas, settling first in Columbus and then
in LaGrange. At Columbus he married the daughter of James Cummins. Several
children were born to this union. After they grew up Moore, strangely enough,
sought to keep them from marrying. The children, however, disregarded this
objection, the oldest daughter to the extent of eloping. Moore never forgave
the son-in-law who was a party to this runaway marriage.

In lighter moods, Moore was a clever storyteller. He could take
the part of a clown in a show as easily as he could assume the role of
an orator. As an orator his great knowledge of human nature, his clear
vision, and his seasoned philosophy stood him in good stead. A rather austere
side of his nature is shown by the fact he often stood near the preacher
in church to note if the people were listening and were properly decorous.
It might be added that he built the first Christian church in Fayette County."
Col. Moore was ready and willing at a moment's notice to assemble settlers
and assume leadership in response to Mexican Centralista threat, but most
commonly in regional security against Indian vandalism and depredations
both in the colony and the Republic. He was one of the first to be called
upon by Lamar's presidency which was known for its "get tough" policy toward
Indian depredations which some credit with having made some of the horse
Indians more receptive for peace negotiations during the subsequent Houston
administration. In addition to the Battle of Gonzales, Moore is known for
his Defeat
on the San Saba 1838 for which he retaliated with a vengeance on his
Victory
on the Colorado 1840. Moore mustered and commanded Fayette County companies
under Captains Rabb and Dawson to respond to the Vazquez invasion of San
Antonio in 1842. Due to illness he did not actually participate in the
Battle of Salado to remove Gen. Adrian Woll's Centralista forces from San Antonio. Some
say he may have prevented the disastrous massacre of Fayette County men
under Capt. Nicholas Dawson if he had been in better shape and taken command.
He was second in command to Capt.
Mathew Caldwell of the Texians who chased Gen. Adrian Woll's retreating
forces toward the Rio Grande after the Battle of Salado.

Re: Alan Huffines' Blood of Noble Men, the Alamo Siege and Battle -- I'm sure anyone reading this fine book must have been struck by the virtual word for word concurrence between the entries from the San Luis Potosi logbook and the corresponding entries from the de la Peña Diary. I kept hoping Alan would address this in one of his footnotes but he never did.

The entries were so close, I have a strong feeling that they were identical
in the original Spanish, and that the slight differences were only because
the translators of the respective documents varied the sentence structure
a little. Is there any explanation for this?

What, if anything, does this concurrence tell us about the validity
of the de la Peña diary? I think I know what Tom Lindley would have
to say!!!

Thanks,
Bob Durham
Dayton, OH

The San Luis Potosi journal is very similar to portions of de la
Peña's Alamo remembrances. I did not address this because
my work is not about historiography (I stated as much in the introduction)
it is about event chronology. It is likely that de la Peña used
the document to pen his own work. Both are different enough, have seperate
details and are not a word for word copy. If I were to construct an history
of the Gulf War and one of my pards from the same war-time organization
had kept a journal, I would likely borrow from it. Don't we all, as historians,
use various journals, diaries, etc, to record events? Possibly de la Peña
used it only to refresh himself and most of the similarities are concerning
those events taking place prior to de la Peña's arrival in San Antonio.
I do not think this discounts de la Peña at all, although certain
people may use it to further their conspiracy theories.

Anglo-Texian attitudes, opinions and personal experiences toward the
Indians of the region, during the first part of the 19th century, are well
documented.

What was the relationship between the Tejanos and the various Indian
tribes in and around the three populated areas (Nacogdoches, San Antonio/Goliad
and the area south of the Nueces) during this same period?

Mick Martínez
Irving, Texas

Just as Anglo-Indian relations were a mixed bag, although they tended
generally be of an exclusionary nature, Tejano-Indian relations were also
complex. Trade with some groups, the remnants of the Caddoans,
the Wichita groups of north central Texas, and arriving immigrant Indians
such as the Alabamas, Couchattas, and Cherokees, was carried on by the
Tejanos of East Texas through the end of the Mexican period (1835-36).

There is also some evidence of trade with the Comanches out of East Texas, but much of this was carried on by Anglo American traders who penetrated the region during the Mexican War of Independence era (1810-1821), when Spanish officials could not control the province's borders. Other than minor raids in which horses and other livestock were the targets, there seems to have been little conflict between East Texas Tejanos and surrounding Indian peoples.

Perhaps the most important reason was the general decline in the
aboriginal populations and the small immigrant Indian population that was
replacing it. In other words, through the mid-1820s there seems to have
been enough room for everyone.

One last proof of the establishment of reasonably close ties between
Tejanos and immigrant Indians was the on-going suspicion of Anglos of an
alliance between Cherokees and Tejanos loyal to Mexico during the Texas
War of Independence and Republic periods (1835-1845). During the Cordova
Rebellion (1839), the great fear was a Cherokee uprising behind the lines
of Mexican invasion from Mexico. Of course, Lamar's war against the Cherokees
soon thereafter, which led to the survivors' flight to Indian Territory,
combined with the dispersion of East Texas's Tejano population following
the Cordova episode, brought an end to Tejano-Indian relations after a
history of 150 years.

Along the San Antonio River valley, Tejano-Indian relations were
just as complex. During the late 1780s the combination of warfare and diplomacy
had resulted in peace treaties with the surviving major independent groups,
the Comanches and Lipans, although both San Antonio and La Bahía
experienced periodic raids by young braves beyond the control of peace
chiefs.

The Lipan Apaches in particular were a problem during the 1790s, as their traditional enemies, the Comanches and other north-central Texas tribes harassed them continually. The Karankawa continued an independent existence along a coastal stretch below the mouth of the Brazos, but their decline was evident even to themselves and they combined periodic depredations with truces during which they sought supplies from the remaining missionaries in the area. Their status as nuisance Indians, however, made them the targets of attacks by Austin's colonists, who received the blessings of Tejano authorities in San Antonio.

Other coastal and southeast Texas bands, which had been in the process of collapse during the late 18th century, entirely disappeared during the 1820s, either merging with surviving Tonkawa in central Texas or the Karankawa, or completely detribalizing and joining the Tejano population. This process was particularly thorough at the missions, where the few Indian families began intermarrying with Tejano settlers even before secularization began in 1793. Unfortunately, evidence for this process is only circumstantial and fragmentary.

For the Tejanos of the San Antonio-La Bahía region, the biggest
Indian challenge by the 1820s was the Comanches. The peace established
during the 1780s survived until the outbreak of the Mexican War of Independence,
when regular supply of "gifts" that the Spanish government had agreed to
supply to the Indians in return for their cooperation dried up. During
the 1790s and 1800s, Comanche bands and other groups regularly visited
San Antonio, where they were feted, bribed, and serviced by the town's
blacksmiths, tailors, and other craftsmen, but when the money for these
services and the goods given to the Indians stopped arriving, the Indians
reverted to their previous practice of raiding for what they wanted or
needed. Reports out of San Antonio during the 1810s-1830s are full of accounts
of Indian depredations, which caused tremendous damage to the town's agricultural
production, as farmers feared going to outlying fields except under escort.

Anglo Americans were able to exploit hostile relations between Indians
and Mexicans during the Texas War of Independence, gaining allies in the
Apache bands that roamed the southern edges of the Edwards Plateau and
the country between Coahuila and Texas north of the Rio Grande. A couple
of examples of the degree to which the Apaches and Comanches (as well as
other smaller central and plains Indian groups) continued to be a problem:

1) the inclusion of requests for the establishment of a
string of new presidios west and north of San Antonio in a northeasterly
arc to create a buffer against raiding into the settled portion of the
country;

2) the agreement forged with Stephen F. Austin, which authorized
him to increase his colonization efforts so long as new settlement took
place above San Antonio along the Camino Real. The result of this latter
effort was the establishment of Mina de Bastrop at the crossing of the
Colorado River, at today's Bastrop.

In the Trans-Nueces, the remnants of a handful of Coahuiltecan bands roamed among the ranges that settlers from the Rio Grande towns claimed north of the river, but were not a threat. Much more problematical were the Apaches and Comanches who raided into the region and whose destruction of livestock caused economic hardship. During the 1810s, their depredations grew so dangerous that many of the ranchos were abandoned for prolonged periods of time. There is ample evidence for this period of hostility in the records of the General Land Office concern the land claims processed during the 1850s as a result of Texas gaining juridical possession of the region following the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848). Although the depredations diminished starting in the 1830s, occasional raids continued into the Civil War era.

In general, then, Tejanos held ambivalent and sometimes contradictory
views of the Indians of the region. Unable themselves to fully occupy the
country, they were content to live amicably with those groups who chose
a sedentary existence, relied on trade to accomplish their subsistence
goals, or sought an alliance with the Tejanos against their enemies. The
Tejanos' every inability to control all of the countryside exposed them
to raids from the more independent minded groups, and toward these the
Tejanos held no sympathies. The Lipan Apaches in particular were the targets,
on various occasions, of plans for wars of extermination. In the end, however,
the Tejano-Indian relations disappeared as an issue with the establishment
of Anglo-American hegemony in Texas. By 1850 the San Antonio area was adequately
defended and the Indian wars shifted west. Anglo and German settlers faced
Comanches and Apaches on the Edwards Plateau, and Mexican settlements below
the Rio Grande continued to be targets of long-distance raids.

For Alamo de ParrasJ. F. de la Teja,Associate Professor of HistorySouthwest Texas State University

Excellent information regarding the relationship between the early Tejanos
and the Native Americans. Were the Lipan Apaches, the Plains Apaches,
and the Kiowa Apaches different tribes, or different names for the same
tribe?

Robert L. Durham
Dayton, OH

Apache is a European term applied to a number of Athapaskan speaking
peoples of the Southwest. In terms of language-family, the various Apaches
are related to the Navajo and to some Indian groups of the Pacific Northwest.
The Rocky Mountains separates the Apaches into eastern and western branches.
The eastern Apaches of the 19th century were the Lipans and the Mescaleros.
Because they were band peoples, the Apaches were very independent and groups
splintered often. For strategic purposes some groups would ally themselves
with other tribes. That's what happened with the Kiowa Apaches, they are
a combination of Kiowas and Apaches and are a mid-19th century phenomenon.

In my opinion, which I think is in general agreement with correspondent
de la Teja, there was no substantial difference between relationships and
attitudes of the Tejanos (meaning Hispanic-Tejano) and Anglo-Tejano colonists
prior to 1836 except one of scale. The gap of ca. 4000 years of cultural
development between the two groups of European origin and nomadic aboriginal
tribes that roamed Texas ranges was so great as to make Hispanic and Anglo
differences in attitudes and philosophy miniscule. The differences
in attitude among different tribes and even small bands of aboriginals
was far greater than the differences between Anglo and Hispanic culture.
Both when they were the majority and later the minority, historically Hispanic-Tejanos
suffered far more per capita than the general Texas population from hostile
nomadic aborigines that roamed and exploited the Texas frontier simply
because their numbers were smaller and they were in their path on thefrontera.

The failure of both missionary and military approaches under both Spain
and Mexico to pacify, assimilate or exterminate hostile aboriginal populations,
resulted in desperate local policies of defense by extermination which
equaled or exceeded brutalities on both sides seen anytime after Anglo
colonization. Unfortunately, those individuals and tribes willing
to assimilate and co-exist peacefully were most often not distinguished.
Because of the ratio of hostiles to Tejanos, the losers were the long-suffering
Tejanos. This situation in the early 1800's was in no small part
motivation to open Texas to immigration through the Empresario system.
Subsequent Texian policy in dealing with Indians in all its complications
into statehood through the 19th century even to the fine detail of the
modis operandi of the Texas Rangers can be found in our Spanish
and Mexican roots.

On a positive note, in less than 200 years, the ca. 4000 year cultural
gap closed, the attitudes and policies employed in early 1800 Texas with
all their complications and tragedy worked. There are more Texans
today of native American aboriginal descent than ever in history carrying
on the traditions of their ancestors while living in peace and economic
prosperity beside Texans of every other conceivable origin.